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Call for support from MSPs on winter fuel allowance fiasco

The Scottish Pensioners’ Forum, the campaigning organisation for older people in Scotland, will be demonstrating outside the Scottish Parliament on Thursday 26th September 2024 from 11AM to mark UN International Day of Older Persons.

This year’s theme is Ageing with Dignity: The Importance of Strengthening Care and Support for Older Persons and demonstrators, campaigners and affiliates will be making their voices heard over the Labour Government’s decision to means test the winter fuel allowance and will be asking for cross party support from MSPs to ensure that many older people in Scotland, and indeed across the UK, won’t be suffering unnecessarily this winter as a consequence of this.

Rose Jackson, Chairperson of the organisation remarked:

“We have been demonstrating outside the Scottish Parliament to mark UN Day for 10 years now but none have been quite as relevant as our demonstration today.

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After the pandemic, many older people thought they had come through the worst of times, and there were assurances from politicians that a brighter future lay ahead, but withdrawing a vital lifeline for so many older people, with a bleak winter looming, is a damning display of how older people are truly valued within our society – as dispensable!

“More older people than ever will die this winter because they will not have the means to either heat their homes or to feed themselves, this is utterly shameful.

“Archbishop Desmond Tutu summed it up perfectly when he said ‘As we get older our rights do not change. As we get older, we are no less human and should not become invisible.’ The SPF and its supporters are here today to prove that this is not the case.

26th September 2024